The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [23]
I was there: I was curious to see how he’d handle what would doubtless be rigorous questioning. But alas, most of the questions involved asking Barton why it is that the Democrats were so hung up on state-directed solutions to the gas-supply crisis, to which Barton—seated comfortably, with his legs crossed, in an informal posture on the sofa in the middle of the lounge—replied that he just didn’t know how it was that the Democrats still didn’t understand the realities of market economics.
The crowd of reporters nodded and jotted down Barton’s answer in their notebooks. The House press lounge is a very strange place. Normally, any place where large numbers of reporters congregate can be counted on to be a filthy, paper-strewn human barnyard, full of foul language, discarded pizza crusts, and atrocious hygiene. But the House press lounge has a dress code—every man in a necktie, women in business casual at worst—and decorum is fairly rigidly enforced. One of my first experiences in Congress was a chewing out by a female reporter who caught me in the lounge without a tie on and told me to “have some respect.”
“For what?” I’d said.
“For democracy,” she hissed.
In any case, this unsmiling crew crowded around Barton now and copied down his gospel. The good chairman made it almost all the way through the press conference without answering a really tough question—until, finally, a New York Times reporter hit him with an unfriendly one.
“Chairman Barton,” he said, “your opponents say you’re just exploiting the hurricane to do what you haven’t been able to do in years past. What do you say to that?”
Barton smiled, sighed, then shook his head, waited a moment, and raised an index finger dramatically. “Let me tell y’all something,” he said finally, after a long pause. “One thing I’m not…is an exploiter!”
I thought he was going to go on from there, but he didn’t—that was the answer. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms triumphantly.
A reporter next to me jotted down in her notes:
One thing not = exploiter
The moment past, Barton smiled and took the next question. Soon after that the press left for the day, and Barton grinned, picked up his briefcase, and crossed the hall to confront the Rules Committee.
THESE DAYS they’re in charge, masters of their domain, but back then, the four Democratic members of the Rules Committee were some of the very saddest politicians in Washington, victims of some of the most severe ritualistic political abuse Congress has seen in quite some time. Over the years, the role of the minority party in Congress and in particular this committee has decreased steadily, to the point where the year 2005—this year—would become the first time in congressional history in which no “open” rules would be sent to the floor from the Rules chamber. In layman’s terms, this meant that the Rules Committee this year would not send a single rule to the floor that would be freely debated, and the number of Democratic amendments would be smaller than ever. With dictatorial Rules chair David Dreier commanding the committee with iron discipline, the roles of the four Democrats on the committee—Louise Slaughter of New York, Doris Matsui of California, Alcee Hastings of Florida, and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts—would be reduced, quite literally, to bitching and moaning as loudly as possible during those few Rules hearings that would be held during daylight hours. That was the only job the Democrats had that year: whine and bitch with maximum pathos, in the vain hope that someone in the audience might notice exactly how disgusting and irrelevant the legislation being sent to the floor actually was.
“It’s basically hopeless,” said McGovern. “Basically we don’t have much room to do anything, but occasionally, if we’re really pathetic, we can shame them into cutting back a little.”
McGovern is the House standup comedian. Stocky, bespectacled, and bald, he looks like